My policy for settling up these questions,” said a Yankee, “would be to banish all the leaders, and tell the rest that they had been soundly whipped, and, now, the best thing they could do would be to go to work and repair their ruined fortunes.
This quote reflects a perspective on post-war reconstruction and the attitudes towards leadership in the South.
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They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action.
They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues.
It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.
In this way they will surely overcome unjust hostility, and convince even the most prejudiced that the denial to them of any right which citizens may properly exercise is equally unwise and wrong.